AppleInsider Staff
In a change to its developer website on Thursday, Apple notes the latest version of its iOS mobile operating system has hit a 74 percent adoption rate as of Dec. 1, a huge share compared to the 22 percent seen by iOS 6.
As noted by TechCrunch, Apple updated its developer support portal for the iOS App Store earlier today and included the graph seen above to illustrate iOS 7's quick adoption rate.
According to Apple, which based the numbers on App Store usage, the share of devices running iOS 7 is a whopping 74 percent. Given the short amount of time iOS 7 has been on the market — less than three months — the pick-up rate is astonishing. Apple first released the latest iteration of its mobile platform on Sep. 18 in concert with the iPhone 5s and 5c launch.
While iOS 7 adoption continues to outpace its predecessor, the older version is still running on nearly a quarter of all active devices. This means some 96 percent of iOS users are running the two most recent operating systems, the older of which is just over one year old.
Apple's numbers nearly mirror those of ad network Chitika, which on Wednesday released data regarding iOS device Internet traffic. According to the analytics, iPhone version distribution stood at 74.1 percent for iOS 7 and 22.4 percent for iOS 6 during the three-week period between Oct. 25 and Nov. 18. As for iPad users, some 9 percent were still using iOS 5, though the number can be attributed to the tablets' longer lifespans.
In the same report, the ad firm outlined Android fragmentation, which saw just over half of all users running the last-generation 4.1 to 4.3 Jelly Bean. Googles current Android 4.4 KitKat is only operating on 1.1 percent of devices, while 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and 2.3 Gingerbread account for 18.6 percent and 24.1 percent, respectively.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
22 Comments
Definitely impressive numbers, but what I'd be most curious about is the adoption rate of 10.9 Mavericks. Features aside, it represents some serious "must have" security features under the hood (especially over older releases still running on lots of machines, like Lion earlier). My hope is that because Apple released it as a free update, that it's gotten a noticeable adoption rate as well...
Definitely waiting for jailbreak
Of those devices running iOS 6, it would be interesting to know how many could run iOS 7 and how many cannot (like my wife's 3GS).
Of those devices running iOS 6, it would be interesting to know how many could run iOS 7 and how many cannot (like my wife's 3GS).
Some people may choose not to update.
All of my iDevices CAN run 7, but only 1 is running it. A choice I made because I personally don't like the appearance of 7, nice spiffy new functionality or not. The one is only still on 7 because Apple won't allow reversion back to 6.
This is all great, but Apple still needs to fix some major Safari bugs(memory leaks) in iOS 7 that cause crashes on certain websites. These bugs are well documented in Apple developer forums.